Under the Moon
by Kaffiene
Summary: Sakura is out at the training field with Kakashi when he asks her to stop what she's doing.  There's something they need to do, somewhere they need to be.


"Good job. You've really improved your aim." Kakashi walked forward toward the center of the moonlit clearing, hands in his pockets. He scanned the area and noticed all the kunai, shuriken, and senbon that glinted under the nearly full moon stuck in various trees and targets. The famed silver-haired ninja looked down at a shining black kunai that stuck up from the dirt. He nudged it over with his toe so that it lay on its side. "You know, I think you're about ready to learn a new jutsu."

He looked to his side to see his student bent over and panting with her hands on her knees. She looked up at the man through a few loose strands of her pale pink hair. "Really, sensei?" She wiped the sweat from her forehead with her arm and stood straight, still breathing heavily.

The jounin closed his eye in a smile. "Yes," he mused, placing a hand on his chin. "Tomorrow, though. You need to rest if you're going to have enough chakra to try and learn it." He turned away from her and looked up at the moon.

Sakura couldn't help but feel a little disappointed that she would have to wait, but she was nevertheless thrilled. A determined grin appeared on her face and she nodded obediently. "Yes, Kakashi-sensei." She turned away from her teacher and began the task of retrieving all of the weapons she used on the targets.

Behind her, Kakashi's only revealed eye was transfixed on the night sky. A minute of silence passed before he decidedly broke it. "Sakura."

The kunoichi looked back to her teacher. "Sensei?" A quiet sigh escaped him, and she noticed his shoulders rise and fall. More than anything else, it worried her. Kakashi almost always seemed spaced out and distracted, but never in such a thoughtful way. She turned and took a step closer to him. "Is something wrong?"

Kakashi looked back over his shoulder at Sakura. The moonlight flashed off the metal of his headband as he jerked his head toward the trail leading from the training grounds to the village. He began walking and taking long, slow strides. Sakura jogged to catch up to him. She attached the kunai she collected to her belt and put her shuriken back in the pouch strapped to her leg.

The walk was quiet. The sounds of their footsteps hitting the soft dirt punctuated the stillness of the night.

Kakashi stopped and looked up at the stars. "Come on." He jumped up into the tree branches, Sakura close on his heels. As they leapt from branch to branch, she wondered where he could possibly be leading her to. The leaves of the trees grazed her arms and legs, sometimes gently, sometimes leaving a small scrape. The cool night air whipped through her hair. After minute or two, the tops of buildings began appearing over the trees in the distance. Kakashi's speed picked up a bit so that Sakura really had to step on it to keep up with him. She had only ever seen him this anxious on missions, making her wonder if the team had gotten a new mission, or…perhaps he was taking her to be briefed on a secret mission. Maybe Kakashi was on a secret mission right now, and he needed her to help him with it!

With a new vigor, Sakura kicked it up a notch and caught up to Kakashi. "Sensei?"

He continued to look ahead. "Yes, Sakura?"

"Where are we going?"

A cloud moved in front of the moon, casting the surrounding world into a further darkness. Sakura stumbled as she landed on a branch. The knot sticking out of the wood was hidden by the shadows of the leaves and the cloud. She paused briefly, making sure she hadn't twisted her ankle. Looking ahead once more, she didn't see Kakashi's figure jumping above the canopy of the trees anymore, and she hurried to catch up to where she last saw him.

On the edge of the trees that bordered Konoha, she stopped, kneeling down on a rather large branch. A ways over to her left, she saw Kakashi standing tall on another thick limb. Sakura jumped over to him, her gaze following the direction in which she thought he was staring. He still hadn't answered her question. "Kakashi-sensei?"

The ninja crouched down, his fingers barely touching the smooth bark of the tree. In front of him lay the village, sprawled at the foot of Hokage Mountain. The four heads carved into the rock seemed to be watching over the village as its people slept. "We're almost there." Kakashi shot off the branch. Sakura's shoulders drooped, and she sighed before following him again.

The cloud moved out from in front of the moon, once again bathing the whole of Konoha in a pale light. As the two jumped from rooftop to rooftop across the village, Sakura would occasionally see a dim yellow glow coming from a window, but it was late. The mothers had already tucked in their children. The ninja at the village gates waited for no one, already in the middle of the night shift. Some of the sake bars were having last call, and soon there would be people stumbling away, alone or together, the smell of alcohol fresh on their breath.

Kakashi stopped, balancing on the top of a telephone pole. Sakura landed nearby on a flat, open rooftop. She looked ahead for some hint as to their secret destination, but it wasn't long before her eyes landed on a group of buildings. She gasped silently. Why would he have brought her here?

She stayed next to him as they moved through the empty streets. She'd managed to fool herself into thinking everyone was just asleep in their homes for the night, but she knew it had really been years since there had been people out walking these streets. Unlike the rest of the village, there were no dimly lit windows or sounds of quiet chatter beyond them. Sakura softly bit her lip and moved closer to Kakashi.

"Why are we here?"

She knew that there was no point in hiding her fear from her sensei, but she didn't feel the need to talk about it, either.

"To see someone," he murmured, not having to talk any louder since Sakura was just at his elbow. His voice held a smooth tone, full of an audible reverence for the place they were in.

Sakura's throat tightened. There would only be one person in this part of Konoha that Kakashi would be going to find. There was only ever one person in this part of the village. It then dawned on Sakura what day this was.

"Today is—"

"Yes."

She didn't need to say it. They walked on in suffocating gravity. Sakura was on edge, peering down every alley, just waiting for something to jump out at them. There wasn't even a single dog roaming the lonely streets under the moonlight in search of scraps.

They eventually reached a rather large house adorned with many banners bearing the clan symbol. Sakura had never actually been here before. She nervously looked up at Kakashi, but she was on the side with the covered eye. He continued forward. Sakura hesitantly kept pace with him, ready to run away at any moment. She couldn't imagine anyone living here, at least, not after what happened years ago. Kakashi led her through the house as if he'd already been there many times. The rooms were sparsely furnished, though it wasn't in bad taste. It actually complemented the feeling of emptiness rather well.

Kakashi stopped when he reached a closed paper door. He looked back to Sakura, his hand on the frame, ready to reveal the opening to another area of the grand house. The girl timidly stepped forward as the door was silently slid open. She walked out of the house, onto the wrap-around porch in the back yard. She accidently jumped when she heard the door quietly close behind her, Kakashi on the other side. She turned back around and whispered through the paper.

"Sensei. . . . What do I do?"

She could barely hear his hushed reply. "Talk to him."

"B-but," she stuttered, "why me? He doesn't even like me."

"Yes he does. He just doesn't show it."

"He doesn't like me," she muttered, more to herself than Kakashi.

It was then that Sakura felt ridiculous. What if he was watching her right now? She was talking to a door.

"Sakura, find him. Talk to him. You don't even have to say anything. Just be with him."

"And if he doesn't want me there?"

"Then leave."

Kakashi was usually good for a lazy pep talk of some sort, and this wasn't his shining moment, but with one more urge, Sakura stepped off the porch and onto the soft grass past the wooden floorboards. In only one more hour, tiny reflective beads of water would start accumulating as dew. She looked around her, searching for some sign of life. Her feet landed without a sound on the dirt as she passed through an open gate, and in front of her was a lake spread out under the heavens. The moon's reflection danced on the surface, and the moonlight echoed off of the water. A dock extended out into the water, and on the end of it was a shadow, distinguished only because it blocked the light reflecting from the water's surface in front of it.

Sakura uneasily walked toward it, a knot forming deep in her chest. This was it. As she walked along the dock, her footsteps echoed slightly against the dry wooden planks. Before she knew it, she was behind the figure, a lump in her throat, without a clue as to what to say. His hair shone in the light, and his legs hung off the edge of the dock. Having no better plan, she stepped over to his side and sat next to him. She held her knees to her chest, her ankles crossed.

"Hi Sasuke."

She stole a quick look at him. Strangely, he looked no different than usual. He didn't look any more angry, more pensive, more melancholy. He was just the same old Sasuke. Sakura noticed that he was wearing a sweatshirt marked with the Uchiha symbol, and she shivered, suddenly aware of the coolness of the night. She was still in her training outfit, which she supposed wasn't really any different from her normal clothes. Her fingers were cold against the skin of her arms.

"Nice night."

She immediately regretted those words. What did she mean, "nice night"? It was tonight all those years ago that Itachi…well, everyone knew, although not many cared to remember what day it fell on each year. To her surprise, she heard another voice besides her own.

"Yeah."

She looked over to the boy. He hadn't moved at all. It didn't look like he'd even said anything. Sakura looked back out over the water.

"Kakashi told to you come here, didn't he?"

It felt like Sakura's heart staggered and almost missed a beat. She didn't know whether to come clean or lie. Instead, she went with the middle ground.

"I don't have to stay."

She waited for a response until she was sure that she wasn't going to get one. In the distance, frogs were croaking, accompanied by the occasional chirp of a cricket or two. Sakura shivered a second time as a light breeze started and then died so that the air was once again still. She opened her mouth but hesitated before saying anything. She wasn't really sure what she was planning to say but let words come.

"I'll just go."

She slowly rose to leave, pausing when she reached her full height. Part of her hoped he would say something, but she turned and started quietly walking away.

"Sakura."

The timid girl stopped and looked back over her shoulder, a bit surprised that he called her name. She wondered if it had just been her mind playing tricks on her, but the voice had been too clear in the still night to have been her imagination. After he still hadn't said anything more, she turned and took a few cautious steps toward him.

"Sit down."

Sakura was surprised that out of all the people in Konoha, he would want her company now even when he'd always wanted to be alone anyway. Obediently, she sat down next to him and tried to look at his face, but only his nose was visible past the curtain of hair. She swung her legs over the other side of the ledge, and with her head tilted slightly to the side began swinging her feet, a solemn, yet hopeful and nervous look on her face. Sasuke absentmindedly stroked one of his thumbs with the other as his hands were folded in his lap, but as soon as he noticed it, he jerked his hands apart. They came to rest on either side of him on what should have been the cold wooden dock. Startled, Sakura looked down at her hand to see that Sasuke's fingers were touching her own. He, too, noticed and, after a brief pause, moved so that his elbows rested on his knees over the edge's lip.

From his vantage point on the roof of the house, Kakashi watched the two. His heart dropped a little when Sakura rose to leave after only sitting for a couple minutes. He himself was about to go until the traces of a voice floated through the night air and caught his ear. He watched as Sakura slowly returned to the Sasuke's side. He almost smiled when he saw them jerk apart a minute later, but the solemn mood of the night kept his emotions in check. He stayed another couple minutes, but there was no more movement from the two. He'd known what the boy needed. It had just been a matter of whether or not he would accept it. With a small nod, Kakashi turned and dropped down from the roof. He moved casually through the empty streets, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a book in front of his face.


End file.
